


Triangle

by creatureofhobbit



Category: The A List (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Intended for a rare pairs challenge ages ago before real life intervened. As Amber's hold over everyone is broken, Brendan, Kayleigh and Zac try to deal with the love triangle she created for them.
Relationships: Brendan/Kayleigh, Zac/Kayleigh
Kudos: 1





	Triangle

He’d noticed Kayleigh right from the day they first got there, when Dave had suggested that icebreaker game where they all had to throw the ball to each other and name a random fact about themselves. But even back then, Brendan could tell that Kayleigh only had eyes for Zac, and that the feeling was mutual.

Brendan hadn’t thought anyone else knew how he felt about Kayleigh. In any other circumstances, the person he would have confided in would have, of course, been Zac, and while he was beginning to see Dev as a close friend, he also knew that Dev didn’t much like Kayleigh, merely tolerated her for Mia and Zac’s sake. He’d complained about the way Kayleigh had kept going on and on about Mia as her “best friend forever”, saying the last person he’d heard talking that way was his six year old cousin, and he’d mentioned that he hadn’t liked the way Kayleigh had spoken to Midge once. Brendan just admired the way Kayleigh was loyal to her friends, and he hadn’t been there at the time Dev was talking about with Midge, so he couldn’t comment on it. He’d just tried to be happy for Zac when he and Kayleigh eventually got together, once it was clear that she had made her choice and was never going to choose him. But in those few days when he had still thought there might be a chance for him, but then slowly realised that Zac was the one Kayleigh wanted, he had done something that he now realises at the very least played a part in setting the following summer’s events at Peregrine Island in motion.

It had been something he hadn’t thought much of at the time. He’d been trying to catch up with Dev, and had seen Midge running off looking upset. When he’d asked Dev why, Dev had explained that Midge had just asked him out, and he’d tried to let her down gently, but she’d just started crying and run off. Dev had asked Brendan not to tell anyone else, and Brendan really hadn’t intended to. It was nothing to do with him, after all. But then on the day of the party, Zac had been asking Dev whether that was going to be the night for him and Mia, and Brendan had just known that either he or Kayleigh was about to say something about it being their first date too, or to start asking Brendan whether he wanted to take a date, and he just blurted out the first thing that came into his head, to get them off that subject so he didn’t have to listen to it.

“Nah, mate, didn’t you hear? Going to be him and Midge.”

He’d regretted it as soon as Zac asked him what he meant, as Dev had shaken his head in disgust before explaining to Zac what had happened. It wasn’t until they’d got to the party later and Brendan had seen the look of hatred Midge had aimed in their direction, and he wondered whether it was possible that Midge had overheard the conversation.

He knows now he shouldn’t have made that comment, shouldn’t have turned attention on to her to divert it from himself. Knowing what he knows now, Brendan realises the incident must have stuck with Midge more than he knew at the time. That must have been what had caused Amber to act the way she did around him at the start, saying he couldn’t go to that party in her cabin, and now convincing him and Kayleigh that they were together. If Mia and Alex hadn’t separated Amber from Midge, breaking the spell they were all under, what would Amber have done? Would she have continued letting Brendan and Kayleigh believe they were a couple for longer? Or would she have done something at the Peregrine Hunt which she had been going on about for ages, something to spectacularly blow them apart?

The second time around, when they all arrived at Peregrine Island with no memories of the fact that they had all spent the summer at camp together a year earlier, a blank slate with no preconceptions about each other, Kayleigh and Zac had immediately gravitated towards each other again. Now that Brendan remembers everything, he understands that despite Amber’s machinations, Kayleigh was never his, and would never be.

Kayleigh understood it all too well when Mia told her that it might take time for them to become real friends again, that Alex and Harry and Petal and Luka had been the ones who had stuck by her when everyone else had fallen under Amber’s spell, and they were the ones she thought of as her friends now.

Much as it hurt, she couldn’t argue with that point, because she had said something similar to Zac only a few hours earlier. Yes, he had punched Brendan at the party when he had seen Brendan and Kayleigh together, he had fought for her then. But everyone had been acting out of character that night: Jenna throwing herself at Harry, Petal turning on Alex, Kayleigh herself thinking it was great when the guys were fighting over her. She couldn’t take that into account when making her mind up about what to do about Zac.

She remembers everything once more, remembers their whole history together. How could she possibly have thought that she and Brendan were the ones who were together? Kayleigh looks at him now and part of her wants to scrub his touch off her, feels sick to her stomach thinking about them together, struggles with the guilt at how Zac must have felt watching them together. Yet another part of her understands that Brendan is just as much a victim of Amber as she was, that he was controlled too and not responsible for anything that happened. Kayleigh barely remembers now that they had supposedly laughed at the idea of Midge’s crush on Dev, the incident that prompted Amber to take her revenge, but she does know that she had honestly had no idea that Brendan had had any feelings for her back then. She remembers him joking about Mia being hot, even though he’d never acted on that, but he’d never shown any interest in her last year, there was nothing that she had picked up on.

Part of Kayleigh is screaming that she’s crazy to even think about turning her back on what she and Zac have, knows that she could just go to him and say she wants it all back, and he would accept her. Another is angry at herself, for not having managed to successfully convince Amber that she was still loyal to her and continuing to be able to be a double agent for Mia, wonders if things could have gone differently if she had been able to retain her sense of herself, to be able to maintain her relationship with Zac without Amber convincing her that Brendan was the one she really wanted. 

Yet another part of her isn’t ready to forgive him quite yet for the fact that he’d chosen to have his memories of Kayleigh taken away rather than try and save her, try and wake her up again as she had done for him when she gave him that old photo of them all at camp last year. That part of Kayleigh is trying not to let herself think it, to try and understand that Zac was controlled just as she was, but she can’t understand why, if Zac loved her as he always said he did, he hadn’t chosen to fight for her.

The words sound pathetic even as Zac says them to himself, let alone to Kayleigh: “I did ask Amber to change it back.” Yes, he had asked Amber if she could change things so Kayleigh would remember she had feelings for him again instead of believing she was in the fake relationship with Brendan. Yes, Amber had refused, but said she could make it so that Zac would no longer care. But Kayleigh’s right; Zac didn’t have to take her up on that offer. He could have fought harder for Kayleigh; maybe in the moment he would have been able to somehow get through to her, to make her realise it was all an illusion.

He remembers the comments Brendan had made at the time, about how Zac had joined the losers’ table with Harry. In fact, Zac now thinks Harry is about as far from being a loser as he could get; it would have been so easy for Harry to have gone to Amber, to ask her to do something to make him more popular, and yet he hadn’t done it, he had chosen to remain true to himself, remain loyal to Alex and Mia. He’d done everything Zac should have done himself. Right now Zac respected Harry more than just about anyone else on the island. And even though he has so many memories of his friendship with Brendan which had long predated the island (Amber never having taken the older memories away) a part of Zac now feels like he saw an ugly side of Brendan, from the Harry incident to the time he mocked Midge and Midge was very quick to throw back in his face once Alex and Mia separated her from Amber.

If Zac could go back and have that time again, he would tell Amber he didn’t want what she was offering, and fight not just for Kayleigh but for the rest of the camp, help Mia and the others against Amber. While he can’t do that now, he has got another chance to fight for her now, to make sure neither the Amber nor the Midge persona gets a chance to control Kayleigh or any of them again. Amber’s taken this summer from them; she doesn’t have to take any more time away. Zac will do what he can to help Mia and the others against Amber and/or Midge, then maybe Kayleigh will see that he’s fighting for their future.


End file.
